


First Step

by ArianneMaya



Series: Aftermath [7]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 02:56:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2093016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArianneMaya/pseuds/ArianneMaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>In New York, Natasha finds exactly what Steve described: Tony's bored out of his mind and more than willing to help. So willing, in fact, that she has to hold him off a couple of times and remind him that, "What I want is to find Clint, not draw a target on his back!"</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Step

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Eeyore9990 for the beta. Any remaining mistakes are mine.

In New York, Natasha finds exactly what Steve described: Tony's bored out of his mind and more than willing to help. So willing, in fact, that she has to hold him off a couple of times and remind him that, "What I want is to find Clint, not draw a target on his back!" Between the two of them, they get programs running through the leaked SHIELD files, and Natasha lets Pepper convince her to stay at the tower. It isn't the kind of place where she'd usually feel safe, but considering how many people now know her name and her face, hiding in plain sight seems like a good option. 

She wishes she could run through the files manually, so she'd feel at least a little bit useful, but there are so many that it would be impossible. All she can do is wait, and hope that the work she and Tony already did will be enough. 

Her heart twists in her chest when she steps foot on her floor of the tower. She was aware that Tony and Pepper were having the tower repaired and redesigned - they didn't really have a choice after the invasion of New York half destroyed it - but she hadn't paid attention, in big part because neither her nor Clint had any intention of moving in, no matter how many times Tony suggested it. Even after Pepper presented it to them as a safe house that didn't have to be permanent in any way, Natasha still thought that the tower was too big, too flashy, too... everything, and that it would never feel like home. 

Now she sees that her floor was actually meant for her and Clint, and was designed with them in mind, in a way that feels like the place would adapt to them, and not the other way around. 

Within seconds, she's turning around and taking the elevators toward the common areas. One day, when she has Clint back and has pulled herself together enough that she feels secure in her own skin, together, maybe they'll make this place feel like home. In the meantime, it's way more than she can handle. 

She finds her way to a small living room and sinks to the floor, leaning against the bottom of the couch. She rests her forehead against her raised knees with a sigh, her body rigid with tension. She hates feeling that powerless. 

The soft click of heels lets her know that she won't be alone for much longer, but when she raises her head, instead of Pepper, she finds herself face to face with Maria Hill. 

"Pepper told you I was here?" 

"She told me you were staying, yes." As she speaks, Maria takes off her heels and crosses the room, sitting on the floor next to Natasha. "And JARVIS was kind enough to tell me where you were." 

Natasha smiles, keeping her voice soft as she says, "I'd forgotten that you can't have any real privacy in this place."

"I only displayed your location because you were in the common areas, Agent Romanoff. I didn't mean any offense." JARVIS sounds as embarrassed as he can be, and for an AI, that's saying a lot. 

Natasha shakes her head. "No offense, JARVIS. It was just a bad joke." 

She closes her eyes, rests her head against the couch cushion. She expects Maria to say something, anything, but in the silence that follows, you could hear a pin drop. 

In the end, Natasha's the one who can't stand it anymore. "What do you want, Maria?"

"I was glad to know you were here, but I guess you're not staying."

Allowing herself a smile at Maria's way of asking a question without asking, she says, "No, I won't stay. I need to find Barton, make sure he's not in trouble." 

"And after that?" 

"I don't know." With a shrug, Natasha opens her eyes to find Maria staring at her. "I'm not sure who I am anymore. I need to figure that out somehow."

"Why don't you start with that?" The suggestion sounds like Maria didn't really think before speaking, but Natasha knows her better than that. 

She arches an eyebrow. "Because I have to find Barton." 

Maria pinches her lips, for no more than a second or two. Just like that, Natasha knows she doesn't agree. "You do know he wouldn't want you to come after him, right?" 

"And you know exactly why I have to do something, or at the very least, try." Natasha raises a hand just as Maria's about to say something else. "Don't try and convince me not to. It won't work." 

"He'd want you safe above everything else, Natasha. You know that." 

"Considering the situation we left him in? I have to do something." 

Natasha winces internally as Maria's smile disappears. She knows it was a cheap shot, but the last thing she needs is to have her actions questioned every step of the way. 

"You think I don't know that?" Maria asks, so softly Natasha barely hears her. "He's not the only one, Nat. The body count keeps going up every day." 

"We all knew this was going to happen." She says it like it doesn't matter, and in an ideal world, it wouldn't. But it feels like she spent too much time with Steve and grew a conscience in the process. 

"Doesn't change how hard this is." Maria sucks in a breath, like she can barely keep control of herself. "I've been keeping track. I have a list of names, of families that need to be notified. I watch it grow every day and, with every name I add, I remember that this is what I did. What we did. The consequences of the choices we made, for the greater good."

Natasha tries to say something, but Maria interrupts her before she can. "I thought I could live with it. It's no different than everything I did while working for SHIELD, right? And I can live with it. Until I recognize a name. When it's someone I know, someone I was friends with, someone I remember from the field, it rips me apart. And I know it's selfish, but I don't want to have to add your name to that list." 

Throwing all her doubts out the window, Natasha makes sure that nothing but conviction shows in her voice. "You won't have to. I have no idea if Barton's gonna be in a state to help me get him out of there, so I'm not throwing myself into this alone. Cap's already made me promise that I'd call him when I need back-up, and I will. Now I just need to figure out where the hell is Barton and what kind of shit he's in." She takes a deep breath. "So if you know anything, you have to tell me." 

Maria stares at her for so long that she almost believes she's not going to get an answer. Then, Maria hands her a pad. 

"What is it?" 

"Everything you need to know about the op Barton was on." 

Natasha's fingers freeze on the pad, her breath catches in her throat. "How did you do that? I came up empty handed, so did Stark." 

"It helps that I knew what I was looking for." It's Natasha's turn to stare as Maria shakes her head. "Don't ask. All I know is what's on there, nothing more." 

With a nod, Natasha says, "Thank you." 

"You want to thank me?" Natasha's back goes rigid with tension as she waits for Maria's next words. "Bring him out alive. And don't get yourself killed." 

Another nod is all Natasha can offer. Somehow, it seems to be enough.

***

After that, she only stays at the tower long enough to study the file Maria gave her. It gives her a where – a small country in South America – and a when – that she already knew, because he saw her before he left and put around her neck the arrow necklace she's always wearing when he's on a covert op without her. 

As she reads more of the file, she hopes like hell that the people he was with could be trusted. But she has no way to know. It's easy to classify the people who were at the Triskelion when everything went down as SHIELD or HYDRA. For the agents in the field, it's a lot harder, and often the only certainty happens when a body turns up. 

And she hopes like hell that she can trust him, too. She keeps her doubts right on the edge of her mind, where they won't get a chance to eat her alive but she doesn't allow herself to forget them. It's possible that she'll try to save Clint only to have him turn on her. If she wants to survive, she has to remember that. 

She reads his letter, again and again, and understand it less and less. She hopes it really means what the letter implies – that she gave him enough advance warning for him to disappear and lay low _before_ he found himself in the field without any resources or an extraction team. 

Even as she thinks that, she can hear Maria's voice in her head, telling her that it wouldn't have been the first time, that Barton often worked without an extraction team. She frowns at that. While it's the truth, it's also true that the only time Clint worked without an extraction team was when he had her as his partner. That makes all the difference in the world. 

When she finally has an idea of where to start, a hint of a plan, she leaves. Tony offers to lend her his jet. She's tempted, but she refuses. It would be much faster, sure, but it would also kill any attempt at discretion. And if she wants this to work, the last thing she needs is for anyone to know she's coming. So she decides to drive her way down to the Mexican border, and from there, to take a plane under the one identity she can still use because no-one knows her name, not even Clint. She's almost certain that there will be first-class tickets waiting for her when she gets to the airport, but she doesn't try to argue. She has a feeling that, after days on the road, before she might have to take down someone who's the closest thing she ever had to a brother, she'll welcome what small comfort she can find, even if it kills her attempt at anonymous traveling. 

She's halfway through Virginia when she realizes that she has a tail. She swears between her teeth and takes the nearest exit. She'd been hoping to do this as fast as possible, in four days, maybe five, but it looks like that's not going to happen. She finds a small coffee shop with a patio, sits outside, and waits, but she doesn't see anyone. Either they saw her before she saw them and turned around, or they didn't follow her, which doesn't make sense. 

She finishes her coffee before taking the road again. Once she's back in her car, she takes a look at the map on her phone. If she's still being followed, what she needs is to go for the unexpected. She taps her finger on the screen at random, and the first city that pop into view is Charlotte, in North Carolina. It's not exactly close-by, but she thinks that makes it a pretty good choice.

It takes maybe a few minutes before the car that was tailing is back in her rearview mirror. With a sigh, she takes a detour toward North Carolina, hoping to lose her tail on the way, or at the very least, to have the time to figure out who's following her. 

When the car finally disappears, she's so deep inside the city that she's almost lost, and has to study her phone for long minutes before she finally gives up and decides that spending the night here will be the best option. 

She finds a small motel on the outskirts of the city. The parking lot is empty, except for two old cars that have to be the employee's, and hers. Once she has the keys to her room, she walks away, leaving her car where it is as she takes the bus to get downtown, and tries to enjoy her evening, as if she was as young and carefree as some of the girls she sees walking in heels too high for the alcohol they're getting ready to consume. 

The whole evening, she never once gets the impression that anyone's following her. However, when she heads back to the motel, there's one more car in the parking lot: the same car that spent almost all day in her rearview mirror. 

Instead of heading to her room, she walks to the front desk. The guy at the counter is young and nice, and it's easy to flirt, to show a little bit of cleavage as she waves a tale about her fiancé, of how they meant to take separate rooms but now she wants to surprise him and the jerk – she says it with a smile – didn't give her his room number. 

The guys plays along but says he can't divulge that kind of information. Still, it's surprisingly easy to look over his shoulder, to figure out which room is occupied and which one is her tail's. 

Said room is empty. When Natasha lets herself in, she finds pretty much nothing. Every item that's been left in the room's been thought out not to give any information, except for the fact that her tail is a guy, and that, she'd already guessed. Among the very few things she finds, there is what looks like a doctor's kit. She suppresses a shudder at the sight. The last thing she wants to deal with is a mad scientist, because it's impossible to guess what they'll do next.

She walks out, locks the door behind herself, and instead of going back to her room, she heads to her car and sits in the back seat, making herself as small as she can. She folds her jacket like a pillow to be more comfortable, and she waits. 

She's almost asleep when she hears steps. Moving just enough that she can have a good look of the parking lot, she watches as her tail heads to his room. He's dressed in black from head to toe and she can't see the details of his face thanks to the hoodie he's wearing. However, when he grabs his key to unlock his door, she sees a glint of metal that feels like a punch to the sternum. 

With shaking fingers, she grabs her phone and finds Sam's number. She hesitates a second and almost texts Steve instead, but she still thinks that Steve can't be trusted whenever the Winter Soldier is concerned. Sam's the safe bet. 

_Barnes. In Charlotte, NC._

It takes maybe a minute before she gets an answer. Considering how late it is and the fact that Sam was probably asleep, it's not surprising. 

_You sure?_

_I saw him._ She takes another look, but there's no more hint of his metal arm. _80% sure, maybe._

_We're on our way. Just tell us where if you have to leave._

She sends the name of the motel, the address and the coordinates. And, just as she's putting away her phone and thinking that sleeping in her car might be the best option, there's a knock at the window. 

She almost drops her phone when she finds herself face to face with Barnes. Her throat dry, she rolls down the window, not even by an inch. If he wants to kill her, she sure as hell isn't going to make it any easier for him. 

"Did you call the cavalry yet?" 

She blinks. Is that humor? She thinks it might be, and if that's the case, he's a lot closer to Barnes than to the Winter Soldier. "They're on their way." 

"Where are they?"

"D.C." 

"That gives us plenty of time to talk." When she doesn't move, he sighs. "Please, Natalia. If I wanted to kill you, you'd already be dead. Or at the very least, fighting for you life." 

Hearing the formal version of her name in a perfect Russian accent feels like another blow. Nobody's used it in years. She can't trust him, but she also isn't going to stay in her car like a damsel in distress until Sam and Steve arrive. 

She unlocks the door, gets out and walks toward her own room without looking back to see if he's following her. "Call me Natasha." 

Once inside, she sits in the chair closer to the door. She isn't really surprised when he rests his back against the wall, facing her in a way that allows him to keep an eye on the door, the window and her all at once. 

"What do you want?"

The silence lasts so long that she almost expects him not to answer when he finally says, "I need your help." 

She tilts her head. He sounds so close to what Steve must remember of Barnes, it's almost scary. "You sound a lot more coherent than I was expecting you to be." 

He looks down at his hands. "I'm having a good day." 

"What are the bad days like?"

"I don't know. I can never remember them." 

She's tempted to ask more questions, but that would only be her stalling for time, and she has a feeling he'd realize that. "Why do you need my help?" 

Once again, all his focus is on her. "HYDRA had a way of always finding me. Even when I tried to run away, when I could remember things, they always found me. No matter how far I ran or well I hid." 

She nods. She knows exactly what he's talking about. "Trackers. Inside your body. About this size." She shows him with her fingers. "If you're lucky, it's an unsophisticated version that should be easy to get rid of." 

The thought is enough to make her shiver. She remembers all too well the moment when she was on the other end of that speech. 

***

Anger bubbles up in Natasha's stomach at the doctor's very first word. She gets what he's saying; it's not even a question that they need to take the trackers out. She wants to be allowed in the field again but it can't happen as long as she's on the Red Room's leash. She knows that the doctor's right and that the only reason why the trackers inside her body aren't activated right now is because the Red Room thinks she's in SHIELD's custody as a prisoner, not as a potential asset. 

She's ready to agree until he starts explaining the procedure. As soon as she hears him talking about surgery and full anesthesia, her anger explodes, fueled by blind terror. 

It's a testament to how far she's come that she keeps her hands to herself and doesn't hurt the poor doc. She screams at him something fierce, in a mix of Russian and English that she's sure doesn't make much sense, but she walks out of his office unrestrained. 

She's glad for the soundproofed walls and the fact that no-one saw her lose control like that. In the field, she's one of the best, always knowing how to give people what they expect to see in her. In here, with all those people poking and prodding at her, trying to figure out what's wrong with her, she keeps slipping, and she hates it. 

That night, when she goes back to the small, sterile apartment SHIELD provided her with – she knows it has to be bugged, but she promised Director Fury that she would keep cooperating if he allowed her into her own place, so she hasn't made an effort to find and neutralize the bugs – she opens her door to find Clint's boots on her carpet. 

As she hangs up her jacket, she calls out, "I wish I could say I'm happy to see you, but I swore I'd never lie to you." 

She hears a snort from the living room. "I wish I could say the same, but I didn't even have time to take a shower when I came back from my last op before they told me you were making trouble." 

Clint is sprawled on her couch. She leans against the door frame. "They think you can convince me to be reasonable?"

"Since I brought you in, they all seem to think you're my responsibility. Like a big brother or something." 

"Or something, huh?" She lets her gaze travel up and down his body, lingering on his arms, on his dick, and making sure that he can feel it.

He lets out a soft laugh. "Don't even try, Natasha. You're not derailing the conversation like this." 

"Damn," she says as he pulls himself in a sitting position and makes a place for her on the couch. "Will that ever work on you?" 

He shakes his head. "You wouldn't trust me if it did." 

She doesn't add anything and sits next to him on the couch. She wishes she could say otherwise – the more she learns about him, the more she wishes he'd take her up on it the next time she offers – but she knows he's right. 

She doesn't say anything. She curls onto herself, folding her legs and pulling her feet onto the couch. With gentle hands, Clint grabs onto her ankle and brings one of her feet into his lap. She turns toward him and lets herself sink into the couch, sighing when he starts massaging. "You better never tell this to anyone." Her threat is empty, and they both know it. 

"If I ever told anyone, they wouldn't believe me." 

She can feel her lips tugging into something resembling a smile. He's right. He's the only one who can touch her like this and keep his hands. Everybody else knows better and keeps a respectful distance, or at least, she lets herself believe that it's out of respect of her skills. It would hurt too much to see fear in everybody around her. 

"You gonna tell me what's going on?"

"Didn't they tell you?"

He shrugs. "I'd like to hear it from you."

She looks down, suddenly fascinated by his hands on her. "The doc told me that I have trackers, courtesy of the Red Room, all over my body. They're dormant right now, probably because they believe I'm SHIELD's prisoner. When they activate them, well... all hell breaks lose, I guess."

"Didn't the doc offer to take them out?"

She swallows hard against the dryness in her throat. "Yes, he did. And I refused in such an aggressive way that they sent you here." 

Clint tugs on her ankle, just enough to catch her attention and make her look up at him. "Why? Don't you want to be rid of them?" 

"Of course I do, but..." She sighs, very softly, as she tries to figure out how to explain. "For the last two years, I thought I was free. That I could make it on my own, with the skills they taught me, and that they would never control me again, ever. Turns out, they never let me go. They could find me whenever they wanted. They were probably shaping my actions all along, steering me in the direction they wanted me to take." Once again, she looks away from Clint, her gaze drawn to the window and the sun slowly disappearing over the horizon. "It was already a lot to take in, and then the doc started talking about surgery and full anesthesia and all I could think of was, how do I know that SHIELD won't take the Red Room's trackers out of me only to put in their own?" 

"SHIELD would never do that." Clint says that with so much conviction that she wishes hearing that from him would be enough to convince her, but it can't be.

"Just because you believe it doesn't make it true. And if I'm under anesthesia, how can I know?"

She almost expects him to argue with her. Instead, his voice softens, and he says, "I get it." 

They spend the rest of the evening watching a movie and critiquing every second of it. Slowly, the knot of tension in Natasha's stomach unravels. 

***

Two days later, she's told that Director Fury wants to see her. As she makes her way to his office, she tenses all over, as if she has no control over her body. She's fully expecting to be told that she has no choice but to undergo the surgery. 

Instead, once she's standing in front of him, he says, "I talked to the doctors. There's a way to do this without anesthesia, by freezing the areas they're working on, one at a time. I won't lie to you, if we want you not to be unable to move for a couple of hours after they're done, this is going to hurt. But it can be done." 

She stares at him, almost speechless, and she's surprised at the amusement in her voice when she says, "You want me to believe that the doc agreed to that?"

"They work for me, Miss Romanoff. I asked them if it was doable, not if they agreed with the ethics of it." He waits a few seconds, obviously giving her time to digest the news before he asks, "Would that work for you?" 

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Then you have an appointment with the doctors tomorrow, at fourteen hundred. Better to get this done as soon as possible." 

She has no choice but to agree with him. Yet, she's feeling confident for the first time since the doctors told her about the trackers. 

Just as she's about to walk out, she looks at him and she can't help but ask, "Why are you doing all this for me? I'm not worth it." 

Instead of the curt answer that wouldn't really be a surprise, he stares at her before he stands and walks up to her. Telegraphing his movement to make sure she knows what's coming, he rests a hand on her shoulder, strong, warm, and comforting. 

She always forgets how much human contact can mean if she lets it happen. 

"As a person? I can't say yet. I don't know you. But as an asset? Believe me, Miss Romanoff. You are more than worth it." 

And she knows he means every word he's saying. 

"Thank you, sir." There's nothing more for her to say. Everything else would hurt too much. 

Gently, he shows her the door. "Don't thank me. You're not out of the woods yet."

***

"Can you help me?"

Barnes' question takes Natasha by surprise, so much so that it takes her a minute to point out the obvious. "I'm not a doctor. I'm not even a medic."

He shrugs. "And?" 

"One cut too deep or in the wrong place and you could bleed out."

"No." Her disbelief has to show on her face. Slowly, he explains, "When they first got hold of me, before I fell, they gave me a bastardized version of Steve's serum. I'm not sure of everything it does – I didn't even realize it was in me during the war – but I heal about as fast as he does. As long as you don't nick a major artery, I'll live." 

That explains a lot, including the fact that he survived through seventy years of mind wipes and being put in and out of cryo, starting at a time when that technology shouldn't have existed. 

Natasha remains silent for so long that he grows impatient. "Will you help me, or not?" 

"I can try." Unsurprisingly, he has all the supplies she might need. With a sigh, she walks to the bathroom to wash her hands and put on a pair of gloves, trying to convince herself that this is no different than all those times her and Clint had to patch each other up in the field until they could get to a real medic. "If there's a tracker in your metal arm, though, there's nothing I can do." 

"I was expecting that." 

She watches as he takes off his shirt and sits. She wants to ask why it's so easy for him; she was expecting him to be a lot more self-conscious of his scars, or the way his metal arm melds with his flesh, and it's surprising how at ease he seems to be in his body.

She doesn't dare ask. She allows herself to feel fear at being with him in such small space for maybe a second before she takes a deep breath and puts on her game face. She has a job to do. 

She pulls another chair close to his and starts running her hands up and down his flesh arm. The trackers are more likely to be on his back, close to his nervous system, but she knows better than to put herself behind him to start with. 

"I know someone who could help, though," she says as she encounters the first bump of skin that shouldn't be there and that, after close inspection, isn't a scar. She holds in a sigh of relief. If she could find the tracker that easily just by touching him, it means it's exactly what she was hoping for: an unsophisticated version that will be easy to dig out of him. 

He looks almost amused, but his eyes stay empty. "By now, Stark has to know who killed his parents. I doubt he'll be that keen on helping me." 

"It was you? Really?"

"You sound surprised." 

"That couple of days in Washington were such a spectacle that I thought HYDRA only trotted you out when they wanted to make a statement." 

He gives out a small hiss when she pulls the tracker out of him before pressing a small piece of cloth against his wound. "I heal fast, remember?" 

"Humor me." 

With a nod, he puts his metal hand against the rag. "Usually, they'd give me discretion parameters. Now that they were getting ready to show themselves to the world..."

He trails off and she continues, "They didn't care so much about staying hidden."

"Yeah. Especially with you and Cap, I think they wanted as many witnesses as possible. To scare people." 

She moves, hesitates for a second before she asks, "Is it okay if I have a look at your back?" Maybe she should do his legs, first, but she's aware that his back is going to be the hardest, for both of them. 

"Go ahead."

She's still surprised when he moves on his chair to turn his back to her. "You shouldn't trust me." 

He throws her an amused smile over his shoulder, a smile that never reaches his eyes. "I trust you to put me down if need be." 

She blinks, does her best not to let what she thinks show when she says, "That's putting a lot of faith in my skills." Again, there's a small bump of skin that shouldn't be there. It shouldn't be that easy, but it's obvious that HYDRA wasn't expecting their soldier to have his thoughts together to the point where he could realize the way they were tracking him. And asking for help should have been impossible. 

"I'm putting a lot of faith in your capacity not to feel fear." He hisses again when she makes the incision. 

"You don't know me." He's read the file on her, true, but that's it. That shouldn't have been enough to send him to her. 

When he speaks again, it's in perfect Russian. "You weren't scared of me when you were a kid and I left you black and blue every day. You weren't scared of me when I burned the skin off your back. You weren't scared of me after I shot you. Why would you be scared of me now?" 

The last pieces of the puzzle slowly fit together in her brain, almost making her hand slip as she recognizes him, and he seems to understand her silence for what it is. "You didn't know?"

Her memories of the Red Room are blurry at best. Her handlers had a way of making sure that she remembered only what they wanted her to remember. She has a lot of skills that she doesn't always remember how she learned. She can't explain that, though, especially not to him, not without exposing herself as a lot more vulnerable than she wants to appear. Instead, she says, “I wasn't sure if you'd remember.”

They fall silent after that as she keeps working, fast and efficient. She realizes that he was telling the truth: he heals very, very fast. Not as fast or as well as Steve, but well enough that she doesn't have to be scared of seriously hurting him. 

Later, when she's washing her hands on the bathroom sink as the reality of what she just did falls on her, she hears him rummage around the room and knows he's getting ready to leave. 

She walks back into the room, still wiping her hands on a towel. "You know Steve only wants to help you, right? However you'll let him." 

"He can't help me."

And she knows, just then, that she won't be able to hold him here until Steve arrives. "What do I tell him?"

He offers her another sad smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "Tell him that the man he's looking for died seventy years ago."


End file.
